Tuesday, April 09, 2013

As we flock to Busch Stadium for the 2013 home opener, this is as good time as any to tell everyone that St. Louis is The Best Baseball Town in America.
In case you didn’t know it, we’ll be happy to repeat it. If you didn’t hear us say it the first 100,000 times, no problem. We’ll brag on it again.

And again. …

And again. …

Let’s face it: we’re baseball snobs.

The Cardinals and their fans can be annoying to outsiders. Try to view it through the eyes of the non-believers.

They see a consistently successful franchise that’s won 11 World Series and 18 NL pennants and is still going strong.

They hear the “Best Fans in Baseball” bluster.

Just the sight of that Cardinal red makes their faces turn red. It’s too much to handle.

Will Leitch — devoted Cardinals fan and contributing editor at New York magazine — described the envy last October when his favorite team upset the Washington Nationals in the NL Division Series.

“The rest of the world, to my astoundment, hates the Cardinals,” Leitch wrote on the Sports on Earth blog. “The rest of the world was cheering for the young, likable, fiery Washington Nationals, with their superstar youngsters ... the Cardinals weren’t the heroes to them; they were the brutish villains, the Cobra Kai, the Empire, stomping on the dreams of the upstart rebellion.”

Leitch vented his angst after noting the reaction to the berserk NLDS Game 5 at Foley’s, the popular New York sports saloon: “My Cardinals! My beloved, sweet, Best Fans In Baseball Cardinals! My comforting Midwestern oasis from this hard, wonderful city … bullies! The Cardinals are the Yankees now? How did that happen?”

Reader Comments and Retorts

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As long as it's guaranteed that the entire 1985 Cardinals team** goes straight to Hell with their whining manager thrown into the biggest fire, I'll give everyone else associated with the Cardinals before and since a pass. It took talent to make the mid-80's Mets seem lovable by comparison, but somehow that Whiteyball team managed to do it.

I knew once and for all that the whole "we're the greatest fans in baseball" schtick was a bunch of bull when I saw that stupid woman holding up her big "ALBERT WHO?" sign during the playoffs last year. They're just as much of a bunch of ungrateful jerks as all the rest of bad baseball fans.

Please don't insult us by telling us your fans love their team more than fans of other teams love theirs. Let us know when your team's fans never reach over the fence to grab balls in play and don't curse/throw things at the opposing team's players. When those things happen, I'll start listening.

Inspired by endless Post-Dispatch suck-up stories about "the best fans in baseball," Cardinals fans are opening a new stadium without a baseball field in the middle, so they can just sit around and watch themselves cheer without distractions.

I don't find them annoying, I just don't think that they should have any national appeal at all. They are regional stories and are fun to chat about between other Cardinal fans, but when you start to deal with national exposure, it needs to be toned down a lot. I fully admit I have massive pride in the fact that we can constantly point to players who have never played for the Cardinals who say nice things about the city/fans. Nothing wrong with that in my opinion. It's when it gets carried into conversations with fans of other cities that it's crossing the line into obnoxiousness. (especially when used as a hammer to diss other teams/fans)

A lot of schools are "the" somethingorother (The Leland Stanford University comes to mind), but Ohio St is the only one whose actual students and staff insist on using the "the". Thus, it is douchey and annoying, especially given that the school is mostly a corrupt athletic program with a college attached.

I remember visiting TheOhio State University in 1987. The university official talking to a roomful of high school students was clearly indoctrinating the group that they were not OSU or Ohio State but TheOhio State University.

I believe the whole "THE Ohio State University" began from a wish not to be confused with Ohio University in Athens, which is actually several decades older than its larger Columbus counterpart. And then, of course, you had Woody Hayes start this "the school up north" nonsense when referring to the University of Michigan; Buckeyes fans now use the abbreviation "TSUN" (which I initially thought was a misspelled reference to Cal State Northridge, or as it's known in SoCal, CSUN).

When Maryland joins the Big Ten, I'm wondering if Terrapin fans will have more disdain for OSU or Michigan. I suppose the dislike will be equal.